The Brothers McMullen

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 15, 1995 by Jospeh Cunneen

I probably also expected too much of "The Brothers McMullen" (Fox Searchlight Pictures). A romantic comedy about working-class Irish-Americans, it won at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. And who wouldn't root for 27-year-old writer-director Edward Burns, who made it for about $20,000, using his parents' Long Island home as his principal set? (Additional money was invested in editing and other postproduction costs after Searchlight's head of production saw a first cut.)

Burns shows triple-threat talent -- he's even good as Barry, the most cynical of the brothers -- and the film is engagingly offbeat, but the residual Catholicism of the McMullens seems limited to on-again, off-again guilt feelings. As the down-to-earth Leslie (Jennifer Jostyn) says at the conclusion of a well-delivered comic set piece, "You can't be a Catholic and have a healthy sex life." Maybe Andrew Greeley's novels haven't reached Long Island yet.

"The Brothers McMullen" reworks the traditional theme of prolonged male adolescence and attendant inability to make a commitment to marriage and family. The opening sequence, in which Barry's mother takes him aside after his father's funeral to tell him that she's going back to Ireland to be with the man she should have married 35 years ago, is attention-getting and gets nervous laughs, but is really irrelevant.

Intended to establish the point that we should be careful not to miss our chance for romantic happiness, it merely removes the parents from the brothers' lives, though there are occasional later references, chiefly by Barry, to an alcoholic father who never gave his sons an encouraging word.

The movie really gets going with a 30th birthday party for Molly (Connie Britton), perfect wife for oldest son, Jack (Jack Mulcahy). Molly doesn't protest when Barry and Patrick (Mike McGlone) temporarily move back into their parents' house with them -- "After all, they're family." And the movie is effective in suggesting the ties of brotherhood, even if Barry is constantly needling Patrick for being a naive altar boy. In fact, Patrick would be the family's candidate for the seminary if he hadn't gotten involved with Susan, who wants him to convert to Judaism and work for her father in the garment industry.

Burns treats Patrick's guilt in farce terms, and the latter's legalistic conscience is made to seem ridiculous, but the movie ultimately validates his belief in fidelity, as in his answer to Leslie's warning regarding Catholic sex: "Unless you find your true love."

The least successful story thread is that of Jack's adultery, because Molly is such a perfect earth mother and Ann (Elizabeth P. McKay) makes such an obvious play for him. Ann is a caricature, such an unattractive character that we're hardly surprised that Jack later returns to Molly, giving Connie Britton the opportunity for effective moments of anger, ultimately superseded by the desire to preserve the marriage.

More carefully observed are the contradictions in Barry, who has ambitions as a writer and runs into the luminous Audry (Maxine Bahns) just as she grabs a Manhattan apartment ahead of him. Burns uses shameless coincidences to bring them together, and Greenwich Village and pastoral backgrounds in Central Park help build a romantic atmosphere. We become impatient for Barry to shed his self-described status as "loveless cynic" and make a commitment for some kind of serious relationship, but can understand how difficult it is for him.

Fearful of Patrick's naivete, he has adopted the opposite extreme: "Hey, I like being a pessimist; it makes it easier to deal with my inevitable failure."

"The Brothers McMullen" doesn't cut very deep, but it's entertaining and doesn't take itself too seriously. Although some will complain that it was blown up from 16mm to 35mm film stock (and sometimes shows it), Burns' success should win him the opportunity to work with far bigger budgets in future films. I only hope that greater maturity and technical polish will not make him lose his sense of humor and personal voice.